6 ms·

That would be cheap for a gallon!

by vidoc 10y ago

ZephyrP 10y ago
In San Francisco at Foods Co (Folsom & 14th), a gallon of milk is presently $2.49.
- vidoc 10y ago
  But it's not organic is it? I'm sure across the street at Rainbow Market the gal will be organic and much much more than $6, but hey I dislike milk so it's just a rough guess :P Besides, I've always been impressed by the symbolic beauty of the proximity of both stores, you couldn't get a better metaphor of how the city is changing.
  - ssalazar 10y ago
    True though Rainbow Grocery in fact predates Foods Co by quite a bit [source: drove by that spot regularly when Foods Co was an empty lot]. Farm-to-table food culture seems to have pretty cleanly transitioned its demographic from hippies to socially conscious technology workers.
briandear 10y ago
Agreed -- Europe has all sorts of government-sanctioned price fixing. If the price of milk drops in France, the farmers starts to burn stuff and throw rocks. However, in the US, agriculture subsidies are less transparent. But then again, in France, you get to pay high taxes AND pay higher prices. The problem in France, from my perspective is that there is an obsession with 'saving farmers,' when many of them really ought to leave the market due to inefficiencies. You see similar dynamics in Korea with rice import quotas -- high consumer prices for rice because rice farming has been a protected industry. Henry Hazlit's "Economics in One Lesson" explains this idea pretty succinctly. Essentially "protecting" the special interest harms the general interest, but that harm isn't easily identified since your average consumer isn't protesting higher milk prices but farmers often violently or vocally protest lower milk prices.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > The problem in France, from my perspective is that there is an obsession with 'saving farmers,' when many of them really ought to leave the market due to inefficiencies. Yeah and what's left then? Huge megafactories with no regard to animal welfare, and providing next to zero jobs to the rural job market? No thanks, it's already bad enough here as it is, Europe doesn't have to go down the US route.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  If the price of milk drops in France, the farmers starts to burn stuff and throw rocks. A year ago, taxi drivers were assaulting Uber drivers/passengers for similar reasons. Apparently farmers do this too? Are large segments of French society just a bunch of thugs who will engage in violence against society if they are not given tribute? Do the police not crack down and jail people, sending a message that this is not to be tolerated? Is this a situation like Berkeley 2017, or the American South around Jim Crow, where the rioters/terrorists are implicitly sanctioned by the government? This situation sounds really surprising from an American perspective and I'm really curious what's going on.
  - vidoc 10y ago
    > Apparently farmers do this too? Are large segments of French society just a bunch of thugs who will engage in violence against society if they are not given tribute? Hehe, I'll cautiously take out the qualification of 'thugs' if you don't mind, but basically yes, French protesting culture is a little bit more inclined to engage in violence. Not all social groups do tho, classically, public transportation workers usually leave it to simply freezing their infrastructure. Farmers don't always engage in violence, they sometimes opt for allegories such as dumping truckloads of cattle feces in front of administrative buildings. The legend says that the most hardcore ones are the 'Syndicat du livre'. Empirical evidence seems to suggest that protests with a little bit of action get better media coverage than polite marchs with signs.
  - vidoc 10y ago
    > Do the police not crack down and jail people, sending a message that this is not to be tolerated? Is this a situation like Berkeley 2017, or the American South around Jim Crow, where the rioters/terrorists are implicitly sanctioned by the government? There's actually a branch of law enforcement named CRSs dedicated at this, they do make arrests sometimes, but seldomly as they usually favor the baton usage, which is an art they are very well known for. Generally speaking, each protest is a war of opinion involving 3 participants: the government, the protesters, and the rest of the population. The latter is key as the way its sympathy swings usually designates the winner. It's usually an equation including the level of justification claimed by the protesters, how proportionate the law enforcement usage of force was, and of course the level of violence used by the protesters. e.g: - Too violent a crackdown makes the government look bad - Destructions of public infrastructures, or vicious display of violence for the other side. Infiltration with unidentifiable agent provocateurs is typical.

That would be cheap for a gallon!

by vidoc 10y ago

That would be cheap for a gallon!

ZephyrP 10y ago

In San Francisco at Foods Co (Folsom & 14th), a gallon of milk is presently $2.49.

vidoc 10y ago
But it's not organic is it? I'm sure across the street at Rainbow Market the gal will be organic and much much more than $6, but hey I dislike milk so it's just a rough guess :P Besides, I've always been impressed by the symbolic beauty of the proximity of both stores, you couldn't get a better metaphor of how the city is changing.
- ssalazar 10y ago
  True though Rainbow Grocery in fact predates Foods Co by quite a bit [source: drove by that spot regularly when Foods Co was an empty lot]. Farm-to-table food culture seems to have pretty cleanly transitioned its demographic from hippies to socially conscious technology workers.

briandear 10y ago

Agreed -- Europe has all sorts of government-sanctioned price fixing. If the price of milk drops in France, the farmers starts to burn stuff and throw rocks. However, in the US, agriculture subsidies are less transparent. But then again, in France, you get to pay high taxes AND pay higher prices. The problem in France, from my perspective is that there is an obsession with 'saving farmers,' when many of them really ought to leave the market due to inefficiencies. You see similar dynamics in Korea with rice import quotas -- high consumer prices for rice because rice farming has been a protected industry. Henry Hazlit's "Economics in One Lesson" explains this idea pretty succinctly. Essentially "protecting" the special interest harms the general interest, but that harm isn't easily identified since your average consumer isn't protesting higher milk prices but farmers often violently or vocally protest lower milk prices.

mschuster91 10y ago
> The problem in France, from my perspective is that there is an obsession with 'saving farmers,' when many of them really ought to leave the market due to inefficiencies. Yeah and what's left then? Huge megafactories with no regard to animal welfare, and providing next to zero jobs to the rural job market? No thanks, it's already bad enough here as it is, Europe doesn't have to go down the US route.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
If the price of milk drops in France, the farmers starts to burn stuff and throw rocks. A year ago, taxi drivers were assaulting Uber drivers/passengers for similar reasons. Apparently farmers do this too? Are large segments of French society just a bunch of thugs who will engage in violence against society if they are not given tribute? Do the police not crack down and jail people, sending a message that this is not to be tolerated? Is this a situation like Berkeley 2017, or the American South around Jim Crow, where the rioters/terrorists are implicitly sanctioned by the government? This situation sounds really surprising from an American perspective and I'm really curious what's going on.
- vidoc 10y ago
  > Apparently farmers do this too? Are large segments of French society just a bunch of thugs who will engage in violence against society if they are not given tribute? Hehe, I'll cautiously take out the qualification of 'thugs' if you don't mind, but basically yes, French protesting culture is a little bit more inclined to engage in violence. Not all social groups do tho, classically, public transportation workers usually leave it to simply freezing their infrastructure. Farmers don't always engage in violence, they sometimes opt for allegories such as dumping truckloads of cattle feces in front of administrative buildings. The legend says that the most hardcore ones are the 'Syndicat du livre'. Empirical evidence seems to suggest that protests with a little bit of action get better media coverage than polite marchs with signs.
- vidoc 10y ago
  > Do the police not crack down and jail people, sending a message that this is not to be tolerated? Is this a situation like Berkeley 2017, or the American South around Jim Crow, where the rioters/terrorists are implicitly sanctioned by the government? There's actually a branch of law enforcement named CRSs dedicated at this, they do make arrests sometimes, but seldomly as they usually favor the baton usage, which is an art they are very well known for. Generally speaking, each protest is a war of opinion involving 3 participants: the government, the protesters, and the rest of the population. The latter is key as the way its sympathy swings usually designates the winner. It's usually an equation including the level of justification claimed by the protesters, how proportionate the law enforcement usage of force was, and of course the level of violence used by the protesters. e.g: - Too violent a crackdown makes the government look bad - Destructions of public infrastructures, or vicious display of violence for the other side. Infiltration with unidentifiable agent provocateurs is typical.